More incentives urged to lure GPs to bush

The Rural Doctors Association of Queensland (RDAQ) says paying remote GPs more via the Medicare rebate would help attract doctors to the bush.

Hundreds of people have signed a petition at Barcaldine, in central western Queensland, raising concerns about that shire's health services and lack of permanent GPs.

RDAQ spokesman John Hall says both the state and federal governments could do more to improve incentives paid to doctors.

"What would make a big difference, and we've called for it in the past, is a Medicare system that saw differential rebates for people in rural areas," he said.

"The Medicare rebate that is paid to doctors for seeing patients privately [should] be indexed 'rurally' so that people were being paid more, so that it really did try and attract people to the areas of greatest need."

Dr Hall says there has been some success in retaining GPs in towns like Stanthorpe and Warwick in the state's south, but changes in a federal classification system are a big concern.

"For a long time the Rural Doctors Association of Australia - our federal body - has been saying they [incentives] don't go far enough," he said.

"Probably a ... worse thing is there's actually been some erosion of the incentives that are existing.

"There is certainly a lot more that needs to be done at both a state and federal level to improve the numbers of doctors west of the Great Divide."

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